Birthday Trip

My son loves camping, which makes me very happy because I do as well.  For his birthday, I asked him what he wanted to do.  I don't think I had even finished asking him, when he replied, "I want to go camping."  Well, that works for me.  So I talked to some of my buddies since their boys are the same age and are friends with my son as well, and we organized an overnight camping trip.

Some of the boys had baseball games in the morning we were planning to go, my son included, so we headed out as soon as the games were done.  We chose one of our favorite spots in Ranchita on Old Mine Road.  Its on BLM land, its not too far away, but far enough away to feel remote, and we never see anyone up there with us.  We had three vehicles in our group:  my Land Cruiser, my buddy's '68 Bronco, and my other buddy's Jeep.

For us, we are lucky because camping with kids is pretty easy.  I don't know if its because we go fairly often, but if there is dirt and/or rocks where we are at, then our kids are happy.  So this trip was no different.  We set up camp as the boys went and explored and forged new trails.  A little later, we broke out the .22's and let boys target shoot under our supervision.  They thought that was a pretty awesome experience.

We had a nice simple kid-friendly dinner with hot dogs, followed by the always fun JiffyPop popcorn over the campfire.  After some stargazing, the kids were pretty spent from playing hard all day.  We slept well and the kids were ready to go play again as soon as daybreak was upon us.

The kids played and explored more as we broke down camp.  We gave them flashlights and headlamps and let them explore some of the old mines that were there.  The mines have been closed off for some time, but we've been in there prior to them being closed off, so we knew that there were no dangers in there.

We headed back out from camp early, and treated ourselves to a great breakfast at Henshaw Cafe before heading home.  It was a great way to celebrate my son's birthday.